You cannot know Spain unless you know Aragón, that former kingdom rich in fine landscape, history and architecture, including Arab works and the Arab-Christian style known as Mudéjar, here at its most extravagant and surprising.

It is the swiftly-flowing River Aragón, running down from the High Pyrenees, which gave its name to one of the most dynamic mini-kingdoms of early mediaeval Europe. Soon Aragón advanced to meet the Moorish occupiers of the Ebro basin and wrested Zaragoza (Roman Caesar Augusta) from them.

From there, it was on to smaller Teruel and the rugged sierras which flank it, to establish, in the end, a shield-shaped territory. With Catalunya, Aragón came to rule Sicily, southern Italy and most of Greece, truly a power in the Mediterranean. Later, in the fifteenth century, it became a partner for Castile in forging the identity for what we know today as Spain. But since then it has been side-lined in the political structure, enabling it, through misfortune, to retain and still convey a sense of its early origins.

The landscape is as dramatic as the history. The peaks and summer pastures of the highest Pyrenees fall almost entirely within Aragón. Dropping south, the Ebro valley is like a winding oasis between deeply eroded, dry clay banks. South again lies steppe country, sometimes desert-like, turning finally to a territory of cliff and gorge. Here Neolithic man left paintings in rock shelters.

The architectural legacy is outstanding. The early stonemasons and architects of Aragón, in tandem with French craftsmen on the Pilgrims’ Way to Santiago, produced some of the most charming Romanesque buildings in Spain, marked by particularly engaging stone carving. The castle of Loarre is arguably Spain’s finest Romanesque military construction. This is matched in beauty and surprise-value by the Arabesques and interlocking arches of the (Arab) Aljaferia Palace in Zaragoza. The intermingling and development of the two styles gives us Mudéjar, built by Moorish artisans and architects for Christian masters, full of fantasy, in brick and multiple ceramic decoration. The four Mudéjar towers of Teruel are among the wonders of Spain.

Military history gives us El Cid Campeador. Though touted as a Christian hero, he worked for years as a mercenary general for the Moorish rulers of Zaragoza. During the Peninsular War – known in Spain as the War of Independence – Zaragoza endured two exceptionally bitter sieges. During the civil war of 1936–39, Belchite, close to Zaragoza, was furiously contested – and left in ruins as a warning for the future. The three-month battle for Teruel, fought in sub-zero temperatures from December 1937, was one of the most cruel of defeats for the Spanish Republic.

Add to all of this four different wine regions, each with its own denominación de origen; pottery still made in the Arabic tradition; intriguing country towns; and robust, big-city Zaragoza, studded with major monuments.